The Clinical Research Skills Development Core will provide a central resource for education-related clinical research training needs and opportunities within tile Cleveland Chmc Foundation's Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, develop new educational activities and programs as needed to fulfill the role the SCCOR, integrate and publicize these activities to our cardiovascular constituents, and evaluate the effectiveness of these activities and strategies to both determine methods to improve these activities as well as document success in achieving our goals. We definie our audience as cardiovascular and post-octoral fellows interested in developing critical skills and research capabilities. The primary goal of the Clinical Research Skills Development Core is to create an outstanding and highly innovative program by which cardiovascular and post-doctoral fellows will have the opportunity to develop rigorous, high-level knowledge and skills bases that they can then immediately apply while being immersed in an intensive clinical research experience. This will be accomplished by means of rigorous course work in clinical research methods and modern biostatistics, supplementary seminars, collaboration with a Foundation-wide Mentoring Academy, methods oriented journal club, and a quarterly Visiting Professorship. The Cardiovascular Fellowship program at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation has a 4-year structure. The first two years are devoted to clinical skills and experience, whereas the last two are set aside for advanced skills in an area of the fellow's choice. These areas include cardiovascular imaging, interventional cardiology, heart failure and transplantation, electrophysiology, and clinical research. The Clinical Research Skills Development Core will be primarily developed for those fellows choosing to spend their last two years in full-time research;nonetheless, all elements of the program, including course and seminars, will be available to all fellows according to their needs. The Clinical Research Development Core will be integrated with the other components of the SCCOR projects in a number of important respects. First, fellows will be provided with rigorous training that can be immediately applicable to participation in the SCCOR projects. The SCCOR Project Leaders will lead a number of the seminars. The Core willalso be responsible for reviewing and documenting how each fellow spends time and develops independent research skills within the SCCOR projects.